What do you do with your Lumia 2520... any regrets?

I have a surface pro 2 and I absolutely LOVE it. My wife has an account on there (doesn't use it much) so she is kinda familiar with Windows 8.1. I am considering buying a lumia 2520 for her (with power keyboard). She uses an old and heavy apple laptop now that her job gave her. She is beginning to have back problems. We are looking for a replacement for it. We have a self-built high spec win7 desktop at home and a hand full of other win 7 & 8 laptops/aio's around the house (she doesn't use the them because they are too much hassle to lug around and doesn't like the desktop in the basement because it gets drafty down there) She likes my tablet because it is light. She wants something along those lines. Portable and cute. We reviewed what she uses her apple laptop for and have concluded that win RT will work for her needs. The question now is which tablet surface 2 or lumia 2520. We are both leaning more towards the 2520 for her. For those who have purchased the 2520 can you tell me what you do with it? what do you use it for? anything particularly unique to the 2520 that the other tabs don't have? how is the NFC and syncing with wp8? we all have wp8 devices. Your thoughts suggestions and experiences are greatly appreciated.

I have no regrets at all. I came from an Apple iPad mini w/retina and I don't miss it at all. I actually enjoy the feel of the device in my hands. I don't use it in portrait mode very often as 90% of what do with the device does just fine in landscape, I listen to music, books, read books, watch (alot) of Metro Tube, read a ton of items via flipboard, pulse and readiy. I watch movies and play games on my device as well. I haven't done much on the productivity side as I am holding out for a bluetooth keyboard that suits my tastes and budget. I have found that I have about 85% of the apps I need and anything else I just use the browser which is actually pretty solid except for a few sites that for whatever reason just don't run very well overall, (SHOWTIME I'm looking at you!). The front firing speakers are a little tinny with not much bass but they are loud and clear with minimal distortion. Battery life is great and charging is not a hassle as it does recharge up to 80% in less than 30 minutes. I bought the HDMI/USB adapter/cables need to connect to my HDMI TV ports and USB flash drives and all work without a hitch.

I think the limitations of the device are a little overstated and the positives far outweigh the negatives. I have a special case that I put the device in to stand it up and it works well, however I have spent much more time recently just holding the Lumia in my hands as it just feels good to hold. I don't fret about needing a dongle to connect with my USB peripherals because once connected, everything just works. The screen is gorgeous, battery life is great, the feel of the device is very good, the performance is snappy and very rarely do I find the tablet incapable of meeting my demands whether its gaming, streaming video or just listening to a podcast. I will admit that it is much more of a consumer device for me right now than a productive one but that will change whenever I pony up for a decent keyboard. I like the look of the Nokia power keyboard and having the extra battery life and 2 more usb ports would be nice, however I just don't want to come off the $150 to get one right now.

Overall, a very good product that keeps getting better as I use it. i am careful to update my apps and RT software regularly and so far its been great.

Thanks for the review. My wife and I read it together it gave us both the extra push we needed we already purchased it just waiting on the order to get here and we got 100 bucks off of it in the store. When it gets here along with the new keyboard I will be sure to give you my thoughts on the keyboard. do you have a windows phone and if so do you use it at all to sync with NFC?

Keyboard update.l it is fanatic my wife and I both love it! For her it was a very short learning curve she is happy to ditch the big bulky Mac book. She got used to the size of the smaller screen and keyboard with no problems. Took me a little longer. It is more enjoyable to do consumption on this than out is on my surface pro 2! It really does feel so much better on the hands. Only real downside is the charms keys on the keyboard they are noticeably smaller and for my finger a bit wedged where the keyboard meets the screen. Her fingers are smaller so for her it's not an issue. Honestly I don't use those keys much anyway so it wasn't too big of a deal. The touch pad (as on the type cover with the surface as well) is a bit annoying. They really should have made an actual button for the left and right click. It takes some time to learn the way to apply the right amount of pressure to use it. It looks great and feels great and is very productive in spite of those small shorty comings. Using RT for her was no big let down either. We have found a way to do everything on it that she would do on a regular laptop 💻 including media center to watch tv on it. Took a long time to get that part working though but we figured it out. Honestly I feel your Lumia 2520 is handicapped if you do not have this power keyboard to go with it. You're really missing out! It Is way sturdier in laptop mode than the surface devices. The buttons even feel better much more like the buttons on the old slide out smart phones. The surface of them provides easy better tactile feed back then even other full fledged laptops. It had a more rough surface to the buttons that feels better when typing and gives you more confidence that you trapped the right key somehow. It feels like Quality!

I use my 2520 for work and play, much like 'thecaringkind', but also use the RDP for administration of my home network PCs and Windows Home Servers, as well as for jobsite visits around the country. I transfer my PDF floorplans onto my OneDrive account from my laptop, then open several up in the field, as well as specifications and other supporting documents and the 2520 does a wonderful job of allowing me to do my job with a lightweight, powerful mobile connected device. I use the Office 2013 RT suite and the touch version of OneNote heavily when I attend project meetings. I literally stopped taking my laptop when I travel when RT devices became available (I I bought the original Surface RT). Once I upgraded to the 2520, the extra 4 radios and sensors that it provides me gave me the rest of the tools that I really needed from a tablet form factor to cut the PC cord once and for all when traveling. Nokia figured it out with this tablet. Looking forward, I see Drawboard PDF as my next mobile productivity tool, if they can make it run smoothly. Up til now, I have used Adobe's PDF app for all of my markups and it works well, albeit extremely limited in scope. My IT administrator has watched my workflow with this device (and the Surface RT) for over a year and was so impressed that he convinced our company's management team to start deploying Surface Pros and Lumia tablets to our Project managers, field superintendents, and my engineering group. This investment will save us tens of thousands of dollars in the short term cost of paper documents that we have printed and delivered to our jobsites around the country.

I really cannot imagine a single mobile connected device that could replace what the Lumia 2520 specifically gives me for the work I do as a design engineer.

My wife now uses the Surface RT and because of the Office suite, has not booted her laptop since I gave it to her. Now that is productivity in a small package, guys. No complaints from her. My only complaint is that I'd like to see Bluebeam PDF authoring designed for RT or Drawboard PDF better optimized for the ARM CPU, as well as InfoPath version for RT so I can fill in forms on my company's homegrown SharePoint site.

Honestly, I have been thinking if I should be regretting my purchase. I picked up this tablet thinking it would be much like my 928 running Dev preview. Its a nice tablet and I appreciate many of its features with the minor hiccups of vanishing keyboard and ie crashes when typing in a forum. Where the 2520 loses me is in the app store depth when in comparison to the windows phone variant. Most of all I'm concerned of the windows rt future. I just don't see it going to far from here. I keep pondering questions such as, Will we receive Cortana? Will we have a microphone key on our keyboard, or transparent tiles and other windows phone 8.1 benefits? I'm feeling very pessimistic.

Honestly, I have been thinking if I should be regretting my purchase. I picked up this tablet thinking it would be much like my 928 running Dev preview. Its a nice tablet and I appreciate many of its features with the minor hiccups of vanishing keyboard and ie crashes when typing in a forum. Where the 2520 loses me is in the app store depth when in comparison to the windows phone variant. Most of all I'm concerned of the windows rt future. I just don't see it going to far from here. I keep pondering questions such as, Will we receive Cortana? Will we have a microphone key on our keyboard, or transparent tiles and other windows phone 8.1 benefits? I'm feeling very pessimistic.

I got mine free with the purchase of my 1520 (made the tablet $200)and turned in two Samsung focus phones ($100 each) so I cannot regret it one bit.

Do you really think they will merge the platforms? Would it be possible since we're based off ARM?

That is the path it seems to be taking , the rumor is that it will be in 2015 before it really comes to fruition if I remember correctly. I read somewhere that the WP code base has a lot of rt files in it. I'm not a developer by any means but from people who know have hinted that this may be happening

The 2520 and the 1520 both have the same Qualcomm snapdragon 800 in them.

The Lumia 2520 is a beautiful consumption device. I compared the weight and feel of the Lumia 2520 with the Surface 2. The Lumia is a much prettier device, and the killer feature over Surface was the 4G SIM and GPS connections. I no longer use my Windows 7 Laptop or Nexus 7 Tablets as this Lumia is my Go To consumption device. So its a great companion device between my Main dual Monitor Software Development Tower PC and my Lumia 925 Phone.

But the Windows RT Apps and Game Store remains dire. It really is pitiful. But I do believe that Windows RT, or its Metro Successor is the only way ahad for consumer Windows. Tablets running 'full fat' Windows, suffer form all the same old desktop and legacy Win 32 headaches that most consumers are trying to get away from. There is a reason Apple and Google have lighter weight Mobile OS, from their desktops. It is because the consumers are fed up with the consequences of heavyweight OSs.
I just Hope that Microsoft understands that most consumers what Tablet designs like this shocking red Lumia 2520, and not 'industrial design' Surface devices. I worry as Microsoft does not understand design, or the consumer like Nokia, and will kill off the Nokia Lumia Tablet line. Stupid Stupid Microsoft.

I also hope that this device will be eligible the Metro [ARM] based Windows RT/Windows Phone Threshold successor OS next year. Microsoft need to understand that the consumers are more interested in Lumia design Tablets than Surface. That's if they haven't gone and sacked the Nokia Lumia Deign Team already :(

I've been looking for a Windows 8 tablet for a while and my experience has been up and down. I first had the original Surface RT and I think many people (myself included) who had it pre-Win 8.1 were plagued with performance issues (apps crashing, slow performance in some areas etc.). I then got a Dell Venue 8 Pro hoping that running the x86 version of Windows 8 would give a different perspective on things. I've always liked the modern interface and when I initially got the Dell Venue 8 Pro I honestly thought that I would use x86 apps and view things on the desktop. In my opinion and experience, I still haven't found any practical way to use any traditional desktop apps on an 8-inch tablet without use of some additional hardware like a second display, keyboards + mice etc. So even with an x86 tablet, I still found myself using the modern apps more than the traditional desktop ones.

I've always had an eye on the 2520 and for me the killer feature as Jules W. put it, is the the GPS and 4G connectivity. I also agree with Jules W. on the state of Win RT. Despite my wanting to purchase the 2520, I think Microsoft really needs to figure out what it's trying to accomplish with Win RT. There are many wonderful apps available now (compared to when RT first released), but I've always felt like its a platform which requires its own identity rather than trying to be two things in one.

I've had the 2520 since the beginning on Verizon. I'm the IT manager at my business and use it when I'm out of the office or in meetings. I'm pretty happy with the performance and size and battery life. I'd say for the average person, even with RT, it's a nice device and with the aircard built-in, can always be connected.

BUT... for me, I need Cisco VPN and also really would like network domain connectivity. I kept thinking, come on, they've got to get Cisco VPN on RT, but it just ain't gonna happen. I could live without a domain connection, but without VPN, I just can't manage or work on my network. So, going to get an 8.1 Pro device this week. I would really like something with LTE, but that is so hard to find in a tablet/ultrabook. The Dell Venue Pro 11 has LTE, but may go with the XPS and use an aircard.

My Gramma couldnt break this OS if she wanted to. I could lend it to her for a month and I wouldnt have one toolbar, spyware, fake Antivirus 2014, iTunes or realplayer crap installed when I got it back.

My Nokia 2520 is immune to viruses! (so far).

I like modern interface. I don't want a 3rd party browser
and I don't want the desktop! I have that at home, on the i7 PC with Windows 8.1.
Netflix, Games and Skype are sweet on this tablet! Office 2013 is quite usable. Insteon app controls my whole house, ELM327 interfaces with my cars.
I bring my tablet to work and the IT dept loves it because they can integrate it with Exchange and other Microsoft Servers. They are even building a custom modern interface CRM app for our sales team.

With "mouse without borders" I can share my mouse and ergonomic keyboard across the desktop and the tablet.
I have 10 hour battery life, and it gets to 80% charge in less than an hour. With NFC, USB, LTE, Bluetooth, WIFI, GPS, HDMI and SD I'm all set!
Also the SanDisk Ultra 128 GB microSDXC UHS-I Card works great in the 2520.

I've had the 2520 since the beginning on Verizon. I'm the IT manager at my business and use it when I'm out of the office or in meetings. I'm pretty happy with the performance and size and battery life. I'd say for the average person, even with RT, it's a nice device and with the aircard built-in, can always be connected.

BUT... for me, I need Cisco VPN and also really would like network domain connectivity. I kept thinking, come on, they've got to get Cisco VPN on RT, but it just ain't gonna happen. I could live without a domain connection, but without VPN, I just can't manage or work on my network. So, going to get an 8.1 Pro device this week. I would really like something with LTE, but that is so hard to find in a tablet/ultrabook. The Dell Venue Pro 11 has LTE, but may go with the XPS and use an aircard.

Haha yeah, I looked at those for sure. But, I'm going to test out the Venue Pro 11 with a Verizon LTE card. I really want to have the built-in LTE and if it works out, will deploy 20-30 in my organization.

Thanks for sharing. I got a surface 2 and love it. I work where laptops are not allowed, but tablets with keyboards are ok. Go figure? Anyhoo we use MS office at work and I love the surface 2 for taking to training classes. I just came across the nokia tablet and love its small form factor. I really love windows 8 and office 13, so I was considering getting a nokia with keyboard case to have just as a back up. Hell, I may make that my work pc and setup the surface 2 as a home pc and an external monitor.

Can you explain how you got Mouse Without Borders to work between your desktop and 2520? I am trying to set it up using my desktop Win 7 machine as the local machine.

Thanks

Originally Posted by Mark Eggleston

My Gramma couldnt break this OS if she wanted to. I could lend it to her for a month and I wouldnt have one toolbar, spyware, fake Antivirus 2014, iTunes or realplayer crap installed when I got it back.

My Nokia 2520 is immune to viruses! (so far).

I like modern interface. I don't want a 3rd party browser
and I don't want the desktop! I have that at home, on the i7 PC with Windows 8.1.
Netflix, Games and Skype are sweet on this tablet! Office 2013 is quite usable. Insteon app controls my whole house, ELM327 interfaces with my cars.
I bring my tablet to work and the IT dept loves it because they can integrate it with Exchange and other Microsoft Servers. They are even building a custom modern interface CRM app for our sales team.

With "mouse without borders" I can share my mouse and ergonomic keyboard across the desktop and the tablet.
I have 10 hour battery life, and it gets to 80% charge in less than an hour. With NFC, USB, LTE, Bluetooth, WIFI, GPS, HDMI and SD I'm all set!
Also the SanDisk Ultra 128 GB microSDXC UHS-I Card works great in the 2520.

+ clear IPS full 1080p display
+ superb touch response
+ LTE if i need it (which i'll likely wont)
+ keyboard functions superb with it
+ universal apps with windows phone (though xbox achievements are not universal and have their own set for difference devices)
+ comes with Office installed without having to pay extra for it

- the actual space you receive off the tablet is EXTREMELY low after all the updates.
- can't move apps to SD card like you can with windows phone 8.1
- far too many problems with the tablet itself as far as owner issues go.
- Nokia's choice not to release the tablet in the other two colors (Cyan and White), sucks
- can only get the red one on Verizon